Panjiayuan (the Beijing antique market)

Pictures compliments of Emma!

The Beijing antique market is filled will all sorts of random gadgets and antiques - both real and fake antiques, ranging from Mao paraphernalia (like a little red book lighter) to old swords, from paintbrushes to cracked pottery.  Definitely an interesting market to browse.  Unfortunately, I don't have any other pictures of the antique flea market portion of the whole market.

  Most of the stall owners are Mongols with beautiful chiseled  facial features.  And fur hats.

So quick anecdote...

Everyone spits in Beijing.  

I mean really spits.  Loudly.  Ladies, gentlemen, children.  Everyone.  While alone or mid-conversation.  Anytime.  Inside or outside.  Everywhere.  It's gross.

While in the antique market, this one beautiful lady had a lovely little stall of beads (similar to above) with very little area to stand.  While I was browsing, I hear the ever familiar sound of an impending spit, only to look up to see her barely move her feet to make room for the spit and then spit directly where she was standing, and move back into position.  No qualms about it.

I do have to say, though, that I now completely understand why they have to spit so often and so much.  With all of the pollution, you literally do have a need to spit.  It is normal to wake up every morning with a scratchy throat (no, it's not a cold) and never really be able to breathe fully during the day.  But I still don't think you need to spit in your little stall space, but I suppose she just doesn't mind...

Traffic jam ready to happen with everyone's little carts for transporting their goods

Yes, you can buy giant stone lions here.  If I could, I would have gotten some for Martel.

Sweet construction workers.  I love their smiles so much.  The Chinese do not typically smile so fully - it is so refreshing to see beaming, unabashed faces.  Makes me so happy.

Asian babies... only get cuter and cuter.

This picture is more reminiscent of the food we did NOT take a photo of (quite possibly the only food not pictured).  Delicious steamed bun sandwich things with chopped pork, jalapenos, and delicious other things (aka I have no clue).

Hot pot!

After the antique market, Emma and I met up with Elizabeth at our local hot pot restaurant   Yes, the same one that made us do their choreographed dance before.

  Both of our hands (as in 4 hands, 20 fingers) marked all the pages in the novel of a menu for all the food we wanted.  I do LOVE it when they are picture menus though.  Although I can, in fact, read English, why don't they have more picture menus in the States??

In pretty much any restaurant, as soon as you sit down, your waiter immediately asks you what you want to eat.  As if you had the menu memorized and already made up your mind.  If you ask for a moment, they will stand there right next to you, as if you literally only need 2 more seconds.  But, I do have to say, they never really got impatient waiting.  I guess they are used to it?

Chinese beer.

Lots of dishes... here are shrimp (complete with the heads), lettuce, mushrooms, and black fungus (sounds disgusting, but it's actually one of my favorites...)

Tomatoes and slices of orange for appetizer... or dessert.  I don't really know.  We just ate it.

Elizabeth is very concerned about her chopsticks, apparently.

Love the bib.

Back at the apartment...

Handwashing all of our clothes... typical with our high quality China appliances.

Chocolate chip cookies!!! (hen hao) and Chinese wine (bu hao) to end the day!

... and many Ikea candles to make us think the apartment doesn't smell weird.

I am pretty sure that Chinese wine was so bad we didn't take more than 1/2 of a sip.  The chocolate chip cookies (mix imported from the US...), although it still had notes of China, are hard to mess up.